2010 Riesling Auslese Fass 10

A “three-star” Lauer 2010 Ayler Kupp Riesling Fass 10 Auslese represents, like its Spatlese counterpart, a wide-ranging and time-consuming work of selection. Here the dominant character is of caramelized pit fruits, nut pastes, and honey, with the prickly pungency of botrytis – along with impressions of cinnamon, crystallized ginger, and candied lime peel – offering counterpoint to the wine’s confectionary cast. The acids here remained somewhat awkwardly detached, though they certainly contribute to an impressive sense of sheer finishing penetration, even if not in engagingly juicy form. This impressive young Auslese really needs time to settle down and point toward its likely future direction, though I expect that in terms of sheer stamina it won’t tire for 20 or more years. Florian Lauer has been convinced from early-on that his 2010 collection will prove a highpoint of his young career. Certainly there can be no arguing about the fact that highly unusual circumstances called forth from him corresponding creativity and that the resulting collection – among other things in its tendency toward residual sweetness (always relying on ambient yeasts for fermentation) and its sheer number and volume of nobly sweet bottlings (700 liters of B.A. alone) – is unprecedented in this estate’s history. “Certainly I never witnessed anything like 2010 nor harvested anything like its array of long-lived upper-Pradikat wines,” remarks Peter Lauer, “and I wish I could ask my grandfather whether anything like this occurred during his tenure.” Picking here commenced October 10 and went well into November. Florian Lauer deemed failures his early attempts (along with Manfred Loch) at testing-out double-salt de-acidification, and in the end relied on skin contact, lees contact, and in many instances (encouraged by batonnage) malo-lactic conversion to tame the vintage’s high acids. Regrettably, Florian Lauer neglected to show me his 2010 Saarfeilser; the sole bottle of Kern he had set aside for us to taste was corked; and repeated attempts to acquire a bottle of either thereafter did not succeed, though hopefully I shall eventually taste and report on both wines. (Some of each had been set-aside for the U.S. market with a projected retail price of $49.00.) Most of the wines were bottled in June, even though a number of them did not finish fermenting much ahead of that. Importer: Mosel Wine Merchant (various importers); tel. (413) 429-6176; dm@moselwinemerchant.com ; +49 (0) 6742 8980 50